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Thursday, October 21, 2010

Looking for Adventure

Next week I'm heading back to North Carolina to help my parents with their house for another month. I'll be there until the week after Thanksgiving. I'm really excited to see where they have gotten while I was away and I'm excited to see what we can get done before the weather gets too cold! Maybe, one of the most exciting parts of this trip is that I'm driving! My "best-est" high school friend is flying out to SLC to make the drive back with me and along the way, we're hoping to find some great adventures! 

After Thanksgiving, my husband (who is flying out to NC for the holiday) and I will be driving back, and we're taking the "scenic" tour! (weather permitting, of course). We have some planned sights to see, and the rest we'll just play by ear. I do have a few spots that I plan to see and I wanted to share them with you. 

On the way out next week, we'll be stopping and shopping at Nell Hill's in Atchison, Kansas. If you're not familiar with Nell Hill's, click on the link and check out her online store, blog and decorating ideas.  I've attached the link to one of her books on Amazon.com, you can check out more of her books there as well. I'll definitely take tons of photos and post them here, wish you could all come along for the excitement!
Frank Lloyd Wright The Houses
 On the way back, we're planning to visit several states to which we've never been. My hope is to make it to Wisconsin to see some of Frank Lloyd Wright's work. I've always had a fascination for his work and the man himself, so it's a dream... hopefully the weather will be nice enough for us to make it. If you are not familiar with Frank's work or design philosophies, I highly recommend checking him out. 

Loving Frank: A NovelAnd, if you're not as interested in his design as his life story and a bit of a sordid love affair, then check out Loving Frank a novel by NancyHoran. ( I guess you now can tell just how much I am fascinated with this man!) 

This next several weeks is all about my favorite passions: great friends (Amy, Lenore & Connie), decorating & design (Nell Hill's, Frank Lloyd Wright), remodeling/repurposing (and doing it with parents is an added bonus), travel and reading (I'll be reading on my blackberry & iPod with Kindle) and of course, blogging* about it all. 



*You can also follow me on twitter @designingprose and on facebook @ Regeneration Interiors! 

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

"I need a volunteer..."

I'm looking for someone who would like to have their home featured on my blog! I want to see what you've done and find out how you did it!

If you remodeled, redesigned or redecorated your home and you have before and after photos, then you are who I'm looking for!

If you haven't started yet, but are embarking on a big remodel, or small redecorating job, then you are who I'm looking for! We can get ideas from readers, I'll share my experiences with you to help you get your project completed!

The idea here is to discuss style, color, design and processes. I don't care if you live in a tiny studio apartment, a cottage or a mansion, I'm interested in how you decided what to put in your spaces and then if you are happy with the outcome!

I want to talk about your lifestyle and how your home reflects who you are and then share some of the secrets you used to get your look! Please join in on the fun and share you home and ideas with the rest of us!

Email me at thedesigningprose@gmail.com or message me on facebook at Regeneration Interiors!

Monday, October 18, 2010

Outdoor Rooms

With fall approaching, it might seem like a strange time to talk about outdoor spaces, but I love fall and when the air is nippy, I love hanging out outside, even if it requires a blanket! This past weekend we ate at a restaurant that had a wonderful patio with a waterfall and great lighting, the weather was great for outdoor dining and there is just something so wonderful about the atmosphere of outdoor spaces that makes the food and conversation better. Fall is also the best time of year to be outside, it's not too hot and the bugs aren't swarming!

In my current place, I have a balcony about 5'X14', so outdoor space is precious here.  You approach the balcony through a six foot slider from the living room and a standard french door from the bedroom, so placing furniture is difficult without blocking the doorways. I'm looking for ideas on how to make this space functional and cozy for sitting outside in the afternoons or for coffee with my hubby on Saturday mornings.

As I started my quest for function and flavor in this new place, I thought about my outdoor space in my last home in Las Vegas. I want to share my backyard makeover with you. Not everyone thinks of outdoor spaces as needing designing or decorating, but you can have "rooms" outside that increase the living, dining and entertaining spaces in your home. And the design and planning are done in much the same way.

Before
When we bought our home in Vegas in 2007, we were looking for new construction, because we'd bought an older home before and spent the entire five years we lived there remodeling and redecorating. We had just finished the kitchen when we found out we were transferring for my husband's job and I never even cooked a single family dinner in the new kitchen! So, this time, we wanted it all done, new and fresh so we could just live there and not work there... (some of you know exactly what I mean). 

Before
So, we got the beautiful new home with new carpets and freshly painted walls, everything was brand new down to the last appliance! But the backyard would take us over half the time we lived in the house, to complete! Now, that doesn't mean that we worked in the yard that entire time, it took almost a year to complete the plans and work out the details, but the planning is always the hardest, most time consuming part of the job... right?!

After
We wanted to make sure we had a space for cooking, eating, lounging and "sun worshipping", this is the desert after all and there is a lot of sun to be worshipped. In these photos you can't get a feel for just how big (or small depending on where you live) this backyard truly is. It measures a 65' wide by 29' deep, that is large by Vegas standards, and that berm is nearly 6 feet high. One contractor estimated that it was about eighty-five tons of dirt that had to be moved in order to give us backyard spaces at all!

I added individual patios for each "room" I wanted. I used the same materials for each, but in different patterns to make the "rooms" have their own character. As in every room, the space had to have a focal point, and I put a fountain on one wall to act as that focal point. It is visible from every part of the backyard and is spot lighted so that it becomes an even more important feature as the sun goes down. The sunning spot is a semi-circular shaped patio done by cutting brick shaped pavers and laying them in a fan pattern off the existing concrete patio.

After. 
The color scheme, (just like any room would have), consisted of the red brick wall, which we had to work with, gray of the existing concrete and the tan stucco of the house. I repeated that scheme in the rock wall, pavers and even the furnishings I chose. With the greenery from the trees and flowering plants all with blooms in red, purple and white the yard had a great cohesive feeling, just like the spaces inside the house.

The major point here is this; you can have outdoor spaces that add to the overall function of your home and you use the same design steps as you do for indoor rooms. 1) decide the function you need; 2) take stock of what you have to work with; 3) if you still need a direction, choose some inspiration; 4) make it your own!

I'm going to spend some more time developing my plan for my tiny balcony, I'd love to see what you all have done with your outdoor spaces. Send photos, post comments, give me your ideas!